Photo courtesy of Haley Lawrence, Unsplash.

The United States likes to uphold a pretty picture of itself and what is deemed morally acceptable in this country; we can fill the skies with smog, leave our citizens to scrape by without affordable healthcare, and wage war on foreign land’s soil, all while boasting our position as the greatest country in the world. But, per the glorious standards established by one President Nixon, the lingering impacts of the ongoing War on Drugs continue to hang in the air, condemning innumerous communities to the brunt of systematic violence and persecution.

It’s important to clarify one thing off the bat; we are, of course, continuously mourning and worrying in the wake of the opioid crisis that affects this country, driven by Big Pharma. The history and continuing issue of drug criminalization overall, however, is a staple of racism, as so many things are, with the war on drugs being undeniably linked with the persecution of Black people, indigenous communities, people of color and immigrants. 

“We knew we could­n’t make it illegal to be either against the war or blacks, but by getting the public to asso­ci­ate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then crim­in­al­iz­ing them both heav­ily, we could disrupt those communit­ies,” said Nixon’s policy advisor John Ehrlichman in a 1994 interview. “We could arrest their lead­ers, raid their homes, break up their meet­ings, and vilify them night after night in the even­ing news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

When we consider the implications of modern day criminalization, what communities are most often targeted? Usually, low income communities and communities of color are the ones who face the brunt of policing and consequent incarceration, regardless of how many drugs are in a community in comparison to those in the communities of the well-to-do white and well-off. In the United States, Black Americans are five times as likely as their white counterparts to be incarcerated, despite making up a smaller portion of the population, reflecting the lasting impact of Nixon’s original strategy. But overpolicing communities doesn’t inhibit drug use; it just makes these communities afraid and lose trust in a government that has already let them down. 

The only way forward is not through criminalization, but rather through harm reduction. Consider the current status of the drug epidemic in the United States; does the criminalization of drugs prevent people from using them? No. 

When we consider both the policies implemented by countries like Portugal, which decriminalized the possession of all drugs in 2001, and the United States, which only recently legalized marijuana, we can see two things: 1.) criminalization does not effectively discourage drug use, and 2.)  only policies formatted with harm reduction in mind can effectively support communities where drug use is prevalent. 

Portugal isn’t the only country taking this approach to addressing drug use and misuse. Belgium, Estonia, Australia, Mexico, Uruguay, and the Netherlands, among others, all have varying degrees of decriminalization either in place or being considered. According to a 2012 report published by Release, the United Kingdom’s national center of expertise on drugs and drug laws, “a country’s drug-enforcement policies appear to have little correlation with levels of drug use and misuse in that country. Countries with some of the harshest criminalisation systems have some of the highest prevalence of drug use in the world, and countries with decriminalisation systems have some of the lowest prevalence, and vice versa.”

A report from the Cato Institute found that around $47 billion is spent trying to police drugs in the United States every year – money that could be spent on community building projects, improving infrastructure, strengthening the healthcare system, or expanding access to education.

Instead, this money is used in the failing War on Drugs, giving rise to the illegal drug trade, resulting in security problems and violence that funnels drugs into urban communities. Several studies, in fact, have found that increasing drug law enforcement tends to lead to increased rates of violence, as well as increased rates of HIV and hepatitis due to a lack of safe, sanitary options. 

We can argue in circles about drugs and their impact on society until we’re blue in the face. The fact is, people are going to use drugs; whether it be due to genetics, to self-medicate, to distract from the oftentimes soul-crushing reality we live in, or just to get high, people are going to use drugs. It’s an unavoidable truth of their existence. And the fact is, you are not better than drug users, no matter what you may think. We have a choice to choose compassion, rather than persecution, when it comes to addressing drug use in this country. 

“A truly human rights-centered drug policy ought to protect human autonomy, reduce the harm of drug use and curb the vio
lence and exploitation produced by the illegal trade,” said a 2021 report from the Global Commission on Drugs.

Harm reduction prioritizes just that: respecting bodily autonomy, and reducing the amount of social and health consequences of drug use, because they will be used. This means providing accessible testing kits to ensure drugs aren’t laced, offering safe injection sites to maximize sanitation and safety, expanding access to naloxone and related training, having options to minimize accidental overdoses, and having resources available if and when users want them, not regardless of that fact.